Babylon 5 Fic: New Command
Title: New Command
Fandom: Babylon 5
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: John Sheridan
Rating: PG
Spoilers: A Distant Star.
Summary: Captain John Sheridan never had any desire to command a space station, but like it or not, he’s in charge of Babylon 5 now, by order of the President.
Word Count: 1000
Written For: Prompt 087 - Leadership at fandomweekly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Babylon 5, or the characters. They belong to J. Michael Straczynski.
From Captain of the Agamemnon to Commander of the Babylon 5 station, all in the space of a few days. It wasn’t the direction Sheridan had ever planned for his career to take, nor anything he’d ever wanted for himself. Deep down, he’d always aspired towards command of an explorer ship, mapping sectors beyond those already familiar to the Earth Alliance, discovering new worlds and new races, constructing jump gates so that those who followed him could cross the vast interstellar distances with far greater ease. But when the President of Earth calls and gives you an order, you don’t say no.
So here he was, thrust into a role he felt completely unprepared for. He wasn’t a diplomat, he was a captain, used to giving orders and having them obeyed, every member of his crew following the chain of command because that was how the military life worked. Everything orderly, running as smoothly as a well-oiled machine barring the occasional squabble amongst crew members. Babylon 5 was a very different animal.
He was still in charge of the military personnel stationed there, but they accounted for only a small percentage of the quarter of a million humans and aliens who lived and worked on the five-mile-long self-contained world. Travellers came and went every day, cargo passed through on its way to other worlds, there were ambassadors from no fewer than four alien races in permanent residence, and representatives from most of the non-aligned worlds to boot. It was enough to make him dizzy, and all of the day-to-day minutiae he was suddenly responsible for was a royal pain in the ass.
Within a week of taking command, he could barely see the desk in his office beneath the piles of paperwork he couldn’t seem to find enough hours in the day to deal with, too busy handling disputes between the various alien races, smoothing the ruffled feathers of people who didn’t even have feathers! He wasn’t cut out for this; the president should have picked someone else to replace Commander Sinclair, someone with the necessary skills, not a man whose very presence incensed the Minbari, creating further friction between two races still trying to overcome their differences a dozen years after the war between them had ended.
Then the arrival of Sheridan’s old friend Jack Maynard brought back into focus all his dreams and ambitions, exacerbated the feeling of being an outsider, a pretender to the throne, a square peg someone higher up was trying to force into a hole he would never fit.
He tried to convince both himself and Jack that Babylon 5 was where he belonged now. He was in a position of great importance; he should feel honoured to have been hand-picked by the late President Santiago to take Sinclair’s place if anything should happen to him. The vast space station was the key to peaceful relations between the various races, he could make a real difference there. But it was all empty words; he couldn’t make himself believe any of it, only grew more frustrated and dissatisfied with every passing minute.
He was drowning in paperwork and other people’s problems, all the petty squabbles, bickering, negotiations, and endless trivialities. The job was turning him into a bureaucrat, a politician, a role he’d never sought, and he hated it. To make matters worse, he was becoming bad tempered and snappy with the people under his command. That wasn’t going to inspire confidence in his leadership abilities.
Slumping behind his desk after Ivanova left his office, Sheridan put his head in his hands. “Why me? I never expected this; I should be out among the stars, not tied to a desk, trying to do the impossible and keep order among people whose cultures are so different half the time they refuse to even try and see each other’s point of view!”
Absurdly enough, it was a Minbari, Ambassador Delenn herself, who opened Sheridan’s mind and gave him a new perspective on his situation. She was a remarkable… woman, with a very interesting, not to mention thought-provoking, way of looking at the universe. He had a feeling he could learn a great deal from her if she’d be willing to share more of her insights with him.
No, this wasn’t what he’d ever wanted for himself, but he was here, and he had a space station to run. It was no good moping around feeling sorry for his lot in life while letting the place go to Hell in a handbasket. Babylon 5 was his responsibility, and it was well past time he stepped up to the plate and got on with the task he’d been assigned.
First item on the agenda would be to clear his desk, wrest some kind of order from the chaotic piles of paperwork he’d allowed to pile up on it, because if he didn’t tackle them soon, before much longer he’d find himself unable to get through his office door, and then where would he be?
It was probably going to take him a few hours to sort it all out, that was what he got for shirking his duties to indulge in a pity party, something that was unbecoming for a man of his rank and experience, but he’d just chalk it up to a touch of disorientation from being thrown in at the deep end. There was a necessary period of adjustment involved in every new posting. This time he’d had to sink right to the bottom before he could work out which way was up, but at least now he was pointed in the right direction and with a little patience and determination, he’d find his feet. He always had before.
Just because he wasn’t out there exploring space didn’t mean there were no discoveries for him to make; everywhere he looked there was something new to see. He may be tied to a desk now, but it was a hell of a desk to be tied to.
The End
Fandom: Babylon 5
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: John Sheridan
Rating: PG
Spoilers: A Distant Star.
Summary: Captain John Sheridan never had any desire to command a space station, but like it or not, he’s in charge of Babylon 5 now, by order of the President.
Word Count: 1000
Written For: Prompt 087 - Leadership at fandomweekly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Babylon 5, or the characters. They belong to J. Michael Straczynski.
From Captain of the Agamemnon to Commander of the Babylon 5 station, all in the space of a few days. It wasn’t the direction Sheridan had ever planned for his career to take, nor anything he’d ever wanted for himself. Deep down, he’d always aspired towards command of an explorer ship, mapping sectors beyond those already familiar to the Earth Alliance, discovering new worlds and new races, constructing jump gates so that those who followed him could cross the vast interstellar distances with far greater ease. But when the President of Earth calls and gives you an order, you don’t say no.
So here he was, thrust into a role he felt completely unprepared for. He wasn’t a diplomat, he was a captain, used to giving orders and having them obeyed, every member of his crew following the chain of command because that was how the military life worked. Everything orderly, running as smoothly as a well-oiled machine barring the occasional squabble amongst crew members. Babylon 5 was a very different animal.
He was still in charge of the military personnel stationed there, but they accounted for only a small percentage of the quarter of a million humans and aliens who lived and worked on the five-mile-long self-contained world. Travellers came and went every day, cargo passed through on its way to other worlds, there were ambassadors from no fewer than four alien races in permanent residence, and representatives from most of the non-aligned worlds to boot. It was enough to make him dizzy, and all of the day-to-day minutiae he was suddenly responsible for was a royal pain in the ass.
Within a week of taking command, he could barely see the desk in his office beneath the piles of paperwork he couldn’t seem to find enough hours in the day to deal with, too busy handling disputes between the various alien races, smoothing the ruffled feathers of people who didn’t even have feathers! He wasn’t cut out for this; the president should have picked someone else to replace Commander Sinclair, someone with the necessary skills, not a man whose very presence incensed the Minbari, creating further friction between two races still trying to overcome their differences a dozen years after the war between them had ended.
Then the arrival of Sheridan’s old friend Jack Maynard brought back into focus all his dreams and ambitions, exacerbated the feeling of being an outsider, a pretender to the throne, a square peg someone higher up was trying to force into a hole he would never fit.
He tried to convince both himself and Jack that Babylon 5 was where he belonged now. He was in a position of great importance; he should feel honoured to have been hand-picked by the late President Santiago to take Sinclair’s place if anything should happen to him. The vast space station was the key to peaceful relations between the various races, he could make a real difference there. But it was all empty words; he couldn’t make himself believe any of it, only grew more frustrated and dissatisfied with every passing minute.
He was drowning in paperwork and other people’s problems, all the petty squabbles, bickering, negotiations, and endless trivialities. The job was turning him into a bureaucrat, a politician, a role he’d never sought, and he hated it. To make matters worse, he was becoming bad tempered and snappy with the people under his command. That wasn’t going to inspire confidence in his leadership abilities.
Slumping behind his desk after Ivanova left his office, Sheridan put his head in his hands. “Why me? I never expected this; I should be out among the stars, not tied to a desk, trying to do the impossible and keep order among people whose cultures are so different half the time they refuse to even try and see each other’s point of view!”
Absurdly enough, it was a Minbari, Ambassador Delenn herself, who opened Sheridan’s mind and gave him a new perspective on his situation. She was a remarkable… woman, with a very interesting, not to mention thought-provoking, way of looking at the universe. He had a feeling he could learn a great deal from her if she’d be willing to share more of her insights with him.
No, this wasn’t what he’d ever wanted for himself, but he was here, and he had a space station to run. It was no good moping around feeling sorry for his lot in life while letting the place go to Hell in a handbasket. Babylon 5 was his responsibility, and it was well past time he stepped up to the plate and got on with the task he’d been assigned.
First item on the agenda would be to clear his desk, wrest some kind of order from the chaotic piles of paperwork he’d allowed to pile up on it, because if he didn’t tackle them soon, before much longer he’d find himself unable to get through his office door, and then where would he be?
It was probably going to take him a few hours to sort it all out, that was what he got for shirking his duties to indulge in a pity party, something that was unbecoming for a man of his rank and experience, but he’d just chalk it up to a touch of disorientation from being thrown in at the deep end. There was a necessary period of adjustment involved in every new posting. This time he’d had to sink right to the bottom before he could work out which way was up, but at least now he was pointed in the right direction and with a little patience and determination, he’d find his feet. He always had before.
Just because he wasn’t out there exploring space didn’t mean there were no discoveries for him to make; everywhere he looked there was something new to see. He may be tied to a desk now, but it was a hell of a desk to be tied to.
The End